


Just A Bunch of Hocus Pocus

by AstridMyrna



Category: Hocus Pocus (1993), Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hocus Pocus, Alternate Universe - Teenagers, Comedy, Crypt Keeper Cameos, Fluff, Going Back to 1993, Halloween, Multi, Oh 90s, Teenage Dorks, Witches, cheese fest
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-04
Updated: 2017-12-31
Packaged: 2019-01-09 00:53:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12265572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AstridMyrna/pseuds/AstridMyrna
Summary: Seventeen-year-old Ben Solo has moved from the sunny shores of Los Angeles to Salem, Massachusetts just in time for Halloween, but he’s just not in the holiday spirit. Expecting a night of watching “Tales from the Crypt” and binge eating candy he’s supposed to be passing out, he’s surprised when his classmates Rey, Poe, Finn, and Rose invite him to check out the old Sanderson sisters’ cottage. They rummage through the sisters’ items and come across the black flame candle, which will revive the long dead witches if lit by a virgin on Halloween night. Ben lights the candle, and drags himself and his classmates into a fight for their lives and for the children of Salem!





	1. If You Don't Believe, You Better Get Superstitious

 

Salem, Massachusetts

1993

 

Ben Solo sketched the outline of what was probably going to be another profile of the Crypt Keeper at the bottom of his notes. He hunched over his work, his dark hair hanging over his eyes like a coarse veil. The world was just him, his paper with the smudgy pencil drawing on the scratched surface of his school desk, his faded jeans, and his brand new pair of white Nikes his parents gave him as a surprise gift after his first day of school earlier that week.

“Now, the legend goes that young Armitage Hux had spotted Sarah Sanderson luring a child into the woods. He sent his friend Mitaka to go and warn the village, but Hux ran into the forest to stop the sisters’ sorcery,” Ms. Phasma drawled on as she slowly paced around the classroom.

Normally the tall British woman dressed in tailored pant suits and tied her platinum blonde hair back like a university professor that somehow stumbled into teaching a high school history class, but today she donned a black and spangled witch’s robe with a glittery black witch’s hat to match.

“The witches had created a potion that would allow them to suck the life out of children in order to keep them young forever. Unluckily for them, Hux had sneaked into their cottage and destroyed their potion, but he was too late—they had fed the child their potion and sucked the life out of her. Winnifred, the oldest and cruelest of the sisters, used her magic book of spells to transform him into a black cat.”

Ben made the eyes a little too big on the Crypt Keeper, but he figured he could save the sketch by drawing extra wrinkles around his eyes.

“Poor Armitage Hux, neither his father, nor mother, nor anyone else ever knew what became of him, 300 years ago.”

Ms. Phasma’s footsteps grew closer and her voice louder, but he continued sketching anyway. He was still listening, but this wasn’t a “history” lesson worth taking notes on.

“And so the Sanderson sisters were hanged by the Salem townfolk. Now there are those who say that on Halloween night, a black cat still guards the Sanderson House. Warning off any—”

The footsteps paused for a moment and a manicured finger poked at his sketch.

“—who might make the witches come back to life.”

The classroom applauded her as Ms. Phasma finished off the story with a half-twirl and a bow. Ben rolled his eyes and muttered under his breath, “Give me a break.”

“We seem to have a skeptic in our midst. Mr. Solo, care to enlighten us with your point of view?” Ms. Phasma inquired.

Ben glared at her, the tips of his ears growing hot, but he couldn’t back out now.

“It’s an urban legend to encourage more tourists to visit Salem during Halloween.”

The class groaned and hissed in response, but he maintained eye contact with Ms. Phasma.

“Now Mr. Solo, where’s your holiday spirit?”

“Everyone knows that Halloween was invented by the candy companies.”

“That is not even close to being true,” said the British girl next to him. “It’s based off of the ancient feast of All Hallows Eve, where the spirits of the dead returned to Earth for one night of the year.”

He turned and met her critical brown eyes that made his insides quiver into mush. She hunched over her tightly folded hands, her thumbs hooked under the sleeves of her cream sweater. Her shiny, walnut-brown hair slipping down her pale face like a silk curtain. Whatever he was going to say in response was instantly forgotten.

“Well said, Rey,” Ms. Phasma said right as the last bell rang. “Happy Halloween!”

Ben shoved his notes in his bag and bolted out of the classroom into the flood of wooping and shrieking students. Some idiot shot silly string into the air as soon as they passed through the double doors entrance of the brick and mortar school building. Ben raked the plastic crap out of his hair as he strode up to his dented red bicycle.

“Hey! It’s Ben, right?”

Ben whipped around and faced the pretty British girl that managed to follow him without him noticing.

“Yeah,” he said, squishing the clump of silly string in his hand and praying he got it all out of his hair.

“My name’s Rey. How are you liking Salem so far?”

“It’s fine, it’s just…” A compliment. He just needed to think of something nice about the town so she wouldn’t think that he was a complete asshole. “I’ve never been big on Halloween and I lucked out by moving to the Halloween capital of the world.”

Goddamnit.

She tilted her head and a smile twitched on her lips.

“You really don’t like Halloween?” she said.

“Black cats and witches and ghosts aren’t really my thing. I’m guessing they’re yours?”

That was a little better, maybe? He leaned on his bicycle seat and slumped his shoulders forward to try and make himself a little shorter.

“Very much so,” she said with a chuckle. “Look, I know what it’s like being the new kid, so if you need help with something, let me know.”

“Thanks. Rey, right?”

“Right. Happy Halloween!”

“Happy Halloween.”

He watched her jog up to another group of girls, her hair swaying with each step, before hopping on his bike and riding towards Old Burial Hill. Centuries-old tombstones choked the grassy knolls of the ancient cemetery, but it was the shortest distance between school and home. Normally the ride was a solitary, quiet, and quick trip, but that was not going to be the case for this today.

Two guys about his age popped up from behind the taller tombstones. The skinnier jackass with long, frizzy blonde hair and too much leather jumping right in front of him, making Ben twist his handles to avoid hitting him. The blonde’s companion, a potato-shaped moron wearing a grease-stained overcoat and a too-small tan fedora on his close-clipped head, guffawed at the whole scene.

“Halt! Who are you?” demanded the blonde.

“Nobody,” Ben growled, his hands gripping his bike handles to prevent them from forming into fists.

“Well I’m Jay, and this is Ernie.”

Jay’s companion smacked him on the shoulder. “I’m not Ernie anymore, I’m Ice!”

“Ice” turned around to show off the word ICE bleached in his hair on the back of his scalp. Ben snorted and pushed his bike forward, but Jay grabbed the handle with both hands, grinning like a troll.

“Hold on there, nobody. In order to pass, you need to pay the toll. You got a butt?”

“No.”

“Got any cash?”

“No.”

“Gee, we don’t get any smokes from you, no cash. What am I supposed to do with my afternoon?” Ice said as he swaggered towards Ben, his hands up as if he were at a loss of what to do.

 _You were given a temper to keep, not to lose_ , Ben told himself. It was a phrase his grandfather had said many, _many_ times in his childhood and early teens, and it was one of the last things his grandfather said before Ben and his folks moved out of Los Angeles last week. He could almost hear the old man’s gravelly voice gently remind him, feel his puffy, soft hand on his spring-loaded shoulder to calm him down.

“Cat got your tongue, nobody?” Jay jeered at him.

_You were given a temper to keep not to lose you were given a temper to keep not to lose you were given a temper to keep not to lose—_

_“_ Oh, check out the cross trainers!” Ice said as he cheerily leaned down to snatched Ben’s shoes off his feet.

_Screw it._

Ben kicked Ice in the teeth, sending the blockhead flying ass over tea kettle. He grappled Jay by the arms and tried to shove him off, but Jay kicked the bike tire and sent them both into the dirt. Jay popped right back up, but Ben’s legs tangled with his bike. A blood-tinged loogie splattered on the side of Ben’s face before a swift kick to the stomach knocked the air out of his lungs. Ben writhed in the dirt, struggling to breathe and absorb the sharp and furious punches to his head and ribs.

Suddenly new hands appeared and ripped Jay and Ice away.

“Let’s make this a fair fight,” bellowed a guy’s voice, followed by the smack of a fist.

Ben finally wheezed, his vision clearing after a few breaths. He watched the three new contenders (two guys and a girl) kick the crap out of his attackers as he stumbled up and on to his bicycle. The world spun at an angle for a moment, but Ben forced his feet on the pedals and rode off.

“YOU’RE WELCOME! JERK!” the girl called out, her voice echoing in the graveyard.

Ben couldn’t smother the red hot shame that burned his face, but he was done with today, done with Halloween, done with Salem. He wanted to go home, his _real_ home in Los Angeles where he would go to his grandfather’s house and make popcorn for them to eat while watching _Tales From the Crypt_ and laugh at the desperate trick or treaters who rang at the door, even though the porch light was off and there was not one Halloween decoration in the front yard.

As soon as he hit the concrete of his driveway, he leapt off his bike, tossed it on the yellowing lawn, and stomped inside the garage.

“Hey kid, how was school?” his dad said while digging through a moving box with HAN’S TOOLS written in Sharpie on the side.

“It sucked,” Ben answered as he flung open the back door.

Leia stood at the other side of the door, her hand still up and just about to grab the doorknob.

“Oh my God, Ben, what happened?” his mother said as she grabbed his face with both veiny hands. “Did you get in a fight?”

“Fell off the bike,” he grunted.

“One hell of a fall,” she grumbled and pulled out a tangled, dirty, neon pink silly string out of his hair. “Go wash up. There’s a bag of peas in the freezer if you need it.”

She side stepped out of his path to the shower. Soon he was clean and lounging on the couch with the bag of peas wrapped in a dish towel and pressed against his sore ribs. He must have looked miserable because when he asked his parents if he could make a call to his grandfather, they didn’t gripe about the cost or anything. His grandfather, unfortunately, didn’t answer and he had to leave a voicemail.

“Hey Grandpa, it’s Ben. Calling to say happy Halloween. Mom and Dad are going to a party at town hall. I’m staying at home and supposed to be handing out candy, but we got the HBO set up so I can watch Cryptkeeper.” Ben swallowed down a little bit of salt that clung to the inside of his throat. He tried to distract himself by looping the hard plastic coils of the phone cord tight around his fingers. “Salem bites, but Mom and Dad says we’ll be coming back to California for Thanksgiving. I’ll see you soon, I guess. Bye.”

He slammed the phone on the hook and shoved it on the coffee table. Pain shot out of his lower ribs and he adjusted the peas to fit right in the folds of his thick red sweater. His parents thundered down the staircase and the distinct rustle of bags of Halloween candy reached his ears.

“All right, we’re finally going. Remember, no girls over,” Leia said.

“’Kay.”

“We’ll probably be home late,” added Han.

“’Kay.”

“Don’t eat the candy until after all the trick or treaters have stopped coming,” Leia warned as if the world would end if the kids would die without their candy.

“Fine.”

“Pizza should be here in 15.”

“Ok Dad.”

“Be good, hun.”

“Will do, Mom.”

“Let’s get a move on, Leia.”

“Later.”

Ben listened for the whining car engine to drift away before stealing into the kitchen and snatching the wide popcorn bowl full of candy. Four mini kit kats, three snickers, and a handful of Starbursts later the pepperoni pizza arrived. He turned the T.V. on just as the Crypt Keeper opened the show by looking up from his _Play Dead_ magazine.

“Oop! Looks like you caught the old Crypt Keeper checking out one of his _ghouley_ magazines!” The shrunken puppet cackled his signature dry cackle. “Which gives you a little hint about tonight’s _dead time_ story. It’s all about the way some guys _die_ over a pretty girl. But don’t worry, kiddies, if it starts to rrreek a little of rrrotten rrromance, I think the title of our nasty narrative makes no bones about where its heart is really at.”

The pizza didn’t last past the end credits of the first episode of his solitary marathon. Ben clawed at the candy bowl for M&Ms, flattened their bags between his palms and piled them on his bruised belly. He rested his eyes and listened to Tim Curry play as a husband, wife, and daughter who taunted the scummy salesman they held hostage when the doorbell rang.

Ben jerked awake and blinked the goo in his eyes away. The doorbell rang again, slower this time, as if someone was leaning on it. His stomach rumbled, still craving the candy in the half-empty bowl. The doorbell rang again.

“All right, I’m coming,” Ben huffed, picked out the empty candy wrappers that fell back into the bowl, and heaved off the couch.

Ready to bellow at the little shits who wouldn’t stop ringing the goddamn doorbell, Ben yanked open the front door and he strangled his roar into a startled yelp.

“Trick or treat!” Rey greeted cheerily on his door mat.

He recognized the three people standing next to her as the ones who pulled Jay and “Ice” off of him: a Vietnamese-American girl in overalls, green and blue tie-dye shirt, and white hoodie, a black guy in a sky blue and black checkered flannel shirt, dark jeans, and a gray knitted skull cap, and a Latino guy with a purpling black eye that was close to matching the color of his puffy sweatshirt that hung over his faded jeans.

“Oh…hey,” Ben croaked. “How did you know I live here?”

“I’m your neighbor, Rose. Hello neighbor!” said the girl with an excited wave.

“Hello.”

“I’m Finn,” said the guy in flannel, and nodded next to the guy with the black eye, “and this is Poe.”

“You may remember us from when we saved your ass this afternoon,” Poe said with an exaggerated grin that wrinkled the skin under his black eye.

“Yeah. Um, thanks for that,” Ben said and held out the candy bowl. “Sorry I bailed.”

Finn and Poe exchanged a pointed look, but Rose snatched a handful of candy and shoved it in the big front pocket of her overalls.

“Apology and payment accepted,” Rose said and popped a yellow Starburst in her mouth. “But that’s not why we’re here.”

Rey glanced at Rose before turning to Ben. “We were on our way to explore the Sanderson house, want to come?”

“It’s open?”

Rey stepped forward and plucked a Twix out of the candy bowl.

“Well, not really. My mum used to run it but closed it down two years ago. We still have the keys, though.”

She looked up at him with a mischievous eye as she bit into the chocolate, a feather of caramel curling over the wafer and onto her finger. She was still wearing her thick cream sweater, and he could see the bulge of the house keys in her jean pocket.

“I know you don’t believe in witches and stuff, but it’s still pretty neat stuff to look at. Plus it beats out pigging out on sweets by yourself,” she added before slipping the last of the chocolate in her mouth.

“Yeah, I’ll come,” he heard himself say. “Give me a minute.”

He closed the door and scrambled around the house—turning off the T.V., throwing the wrappers away, scribbling out a note for his folks, checking to make sure his hair didn’t look like a rat’s nest and didn’t have a scrap of silly string in it—and rushed right outside. He locked both locks on the front door, shoved the keys in his back pocket, and turned to them all.

“Let’s go break into a dead witch’s cottage.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AT LAST! I feel that this is going to be my most fun and challenging project yet. I watched the movie twice and have the script so writing it feels like a choose your own adventure, lol.
> 
> Anyway, I hope you all have as much fun reading it as I do writing it! Chapter aesthetic was also created by me. I finally figured out how to make collages!


	2. Now The Witch Is Back, And There's Hell To Pay

Rey and Rose walked ahead of Ben, Finn, and Poe on the winding, dark road where the street lamps were few and far between. The girls linked arms and shared hushed words that burst into shrieking giggles. Poe and Finn chatted about the animatronic dinosaurs in _Jurassic Park_ , the summer blockbuster that everyone had seen except for Ben (pay money to watch a movie and not hear half of it because no one would shut up? Ha! He'd wait for the VHS). Why did he say yes to this? He didn’t know any of these people, and Rey now knew him as the asshole who hated Halloween _and_ abandoned a fight. Why did she invite him in the first place?

Rey turned her head at him, her smile reaching all the way up to her dark eyes that reflected the hazy glow of the lamp light. 

Holy crap, maybe she did like him.

He smiled back at her, and she crinkled her nose before turning forward and hunching her head near Rose’s.

Or maybe she thought he was weird.

“So how long have you known Rey?” he blurted out to Finn and Poe.

Finn squinted an eye and twisted his mouth as he reminisced. “She moved here…at the end of middle school, right?”

“Sounds about right,” Poe said. “And you’re in Rey’s history class?”

“Yeah.” Ben lowered his voice. “Has she said anything about me?”

“That you’re from Los Angeles and hate fun.”

They both laughed at Ben’s glare, and Finn elbowed his arm.

“We’re just pulling your chain, man. When did you start to hate on Halloween, though? Did you trick or treat until your neighbors had to tell you that you were too old for it?”

“I don’t hate Halloween, or hate fun,” Ben huffed. “I just never thought Halloween and trick-or-treating fun. There's no point in walking for miles and begging for crappy discount candy from strangers when I could just ask my folks to get the good stuff.”

“Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute,” Poe said, holding an arm out to stop Ben and Finn from moving forward. “Let me make sure I’m understanding this right— _even as a small child,_ you didn’t like Halloween or trick-or-treating for free candy?”

“…yes?”

“OH. MY. GOD.” Poe yelled. He threw his hands up to the heavens, threw his head back, and laughed.

“You are unreal, man,” Finn said and clapped Ben on the shoulder.

Rey whipped her head around. “What is going on back there?”

 “N-Nothing, Rey, nothing,” Finn wheezed as he held on to Poe’s shoulder to keep from doubling over.

“Ben, is everything all right?”

Ben dug his hands in his pockets and shrugged. “Fine.”

Rey pursed her lips into a tight line, but she turned her head forward again. The slight hill they had been climbing plateaued as they walked past a stone wall that was even taller than Ben. They piled by the plain iron gate that gave them a glimpse of the cottage ahead, hidden through the overgrown weeds and gnarled, hunched trees. For being three-hundred years old, the outside of the two-story cottage looked pretty stable, if gray with age. All of its cross-hatched windows were still intact at least. Ben smiled at the faded red and white “ENTERING: _Salem Historic Park_ ,” but didn’t dare say a word about being right about this being a tourist trap--or, _was_ a tourist trap if it had been closed for two years. With Rey in the lead and Ben in the very back, the group tromped in a single line through the shaggy grass, up the creaking steps, and huddled by the front door.

“Got it!” Rey said as she unlocked the door, but had to push her shoulder against it to get it to open.

They piled inside, the only light coming from the street lamp that filtered through the grimy front windows.

“I can’t see a thing. Did anyone think to bring a flashlight?” Finn asked.

Silence.

“Shit,” Rose said.

“That’s ok,” Rey said as her footsteps “I know that the fuse box is around here, I just need to feel around for the right switches.”

In the corner of his eye, Ben spied a box of souvenir lighters thick with cobwebs next to the cash register on the counter. He dusted it off before walking to Rey by the fuse box.

“I found a lighter,” he said and flicked it on.

He tried to angle the flame so it shed a little more light on the switches. The flamelight flickered in her eyes for a moment when she glanced up at him, but she returned to the fuse box as her hands flipped up switches.

“Thanks, Ben. There!” she said, the entire cottage flooding with light from the chandeliers.

Ben snapped the lighter closed and took in the cluttered chaos of the scene. Every inch of the main room of cottage was covered, from the witches’ broom nailed on the walls to the spiderweb-laced cauldron at the center of the room to the glass case podiums of trinkets and baubles the witches used to own (including a massive, leather-bound book) to the assorted glass jars of spell ingredients coated in gray-brown dust on the shelves next to the stairs.

 “Look it all this!” Poe marveled as he pulled Finn by the spell ingredients.

“‘ _Deadman’s toe_ ’? What do you make with a dead man’s toe?” Finn said with a grimace on his face.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Rose said as she ran towards the gargantuan cauldron that could fit three of her. “I forgot how cool this place was. Why did your mom shut it down, Rey?”

“Well, a lot of spooky things kept happening,” she answered with a grin, and she nudged Ben’s elbow with hers. “Items would go missing and return in odd places, strange knocking from the ceiling even though no one was upstairs, and there’s even a mysterious black cat that haunts the place and hissed at visitors.”

Sure, flame-shaped light bulbs replaced the candles on the chandeliers, a bent wire grate hung over the cold fireplace, each carefully partitioned pile of junk artifacts had its own pun-laden summary to explain the “history” behind it, and the place probably closed down because its upkeep cost more than what cash it could wrangle out of tourists—but he loved how excited Rey looked just talking about the place, so he kept his mouth shut and smiled back at her.

“Check this out!” Rey said as she rounded the podium with the leather bound book. “This is the spell book of Winnifred Sanderson, given to her by the devil himself. The book is bound in human skin, and contains the recipes for her most powerful and evil spells.”

“Didn’t help her much in the end,” Ben said.

He looked over Rey’s shoulder to get a closer look at the book, the hair on the back of his neck prickling at the sight of the patchwork leather held together with thick brown stitches. A round, oily bulge under the metal latch resembling a little too much like a closed human eye.

Rose popped up next to his side. “Any guesses on how to get it out of its coffin?”

“Didn’t Rey _just say_ that it was made out of human skin?” Finn groaned.

“The cover’s made out of human skin, not the paper with the spells on it,” Rose sneered back.

“I only have the keys to get into the place, but not to open any of the display cases,” Rey said with a shrug.

“Your plans to summon the devil and rule the world have been foiled again, Rose!” Poe bellowed, holding up a jar of some thick, yellow liquid.

“And I would have done it too, if it weren’t for you meddlin’ kids.”

Ben smirked as the room filled with laughter. He meandered away from Rey and Rose and found himself in a darker corner in the back of the room with an actual candle. It wasn’t a regular candle either: it was tall, thick as his arm, and its white wax was inscribed with rusty ink runes. Ben smeared the dust away from its small summary placard with his thumb.

“What’s that?” Rey asked.

“The Black Flame Candle. Made from the fat of a hangman. Legend says that on a full moon it will raise the spirits of the dead when lit by a virgin on Halloween night,” he read. He flipped open the souvenir lighter still in his hand. “Finn, Poe, would either of you like to do the honors?”

“Screw you,” Finn chuckled.

Poe raised his hands in surrender. “I’m not going to be responsible for turning Halloween night into Night of the Living Dead.”

Ben rolled his eyes and held the lighter out to the girls.

“Any takers?”

“I don’t think so,” Rose said.

“No thank you,” Rey chimed in.

“Well, if no one’s willing—OW!”

Just as he held his unlit lighter over the candle, a black hissing fury clambered up his back, launched itself into the air by kicking off from the side of his head with its back feet, and scurried into a dark corner of the cottage.

“What the hell was that?” Poe shouted.

“A stupid cat,” Ben fumed.

“A black cat,” Finn said.

The entire room held its breath for a moment, and then--

“Ok, I think I’m done. Who’s down for scary movies and popcorn at my place?” Poe said.

“Sounds good to me,” Finn replied.

“Ditto,” added Rose.

Rey folded her arms over her chest. “Me too. Let’s get going.”

Ben gaped at the others as they clustered together towards the front door.

“Unbelievable. You’re spooked by a feral cat?” he called out.

Poe shook his finger at him. “A black cat in a haunted witch cottage.”

“Look, we’re not even supposed to be here, so let’s not tempt fate and go before something stupid happens,” Finn said.

“C’mon, Ben. We’ve had our fun here,” Rey said.

Rey and her friends were really spooked by the tacky tourist trap and its cat infestation. Ben flipped open the lid of his lighter and flicked it on.

“Oh come on, it’s just a bunch of hocus pocus.”

“Ben, no!” Rose screeched.

Ben lit the candle and snapped the lighter shut. The flame flickered a soft yellow, and Ben snorted out a laugh at their expense. Then, true to its name, the flame winked black.

“Uh oh,” he said.

 _POP POP POP POP_ went the light bulbs as they burst from their holsters, sending shattered pieces of glass to clink and clank on the floor. Electric green light burst between the cracks of the shifting floorboards that knocked Finn off his feet and sent Rey and Rose to stumble in to each other. Ben gripped the table that held the candle as he tried to blow the black flame out. As suddenly as it started, it stopped and the cottage was still.

“What happened?” Ben panted in the dark.

Rey  slammed the keys on the counter.

“A virgin lit the candle,” she huffed.

Real flames replaced the artificial ones, and the fire in the hearth gasped to life. An invisible wind swirled under the cauldron, lighting its flame underneath it while whisking away the thick cobwebs. The door flung open, revealing the silhouettes of three sinister sisters cackling in the moonlight. Rey and Rose dove behind the cash counter, Finn and Poe scurried into the broom closet, and Ben folded himself in the corner of the wall and the covered table. He made eye contact with Rey across the room and mouthed _sorry_ , but she only glared at him from the shadows.

Ben didn’t dare raise his head to get a better look of the witches he heard them clatter inside the cottage. The edges of a dark purple skirt skimmed by him, followed by a wide plaid skirt.

“We’re home! Oh, sweet revenge. Do you see, sisters, my curse worked perfectly!” said the permanent shrill of one sister.

“Oh, that’s because thou art perfect, Winnie. Oh, I knew I left this cauldron on, didn’t I tell you? Oh, I knew it,” said another, more nasally sister.

Suddenly, the third squealed, “My lucky rat tail! Right where I left it.”

The shrill voice he assumed belonged to Winnie continued, “Ahhh, but who lit the black flame candle?” A sudden rap of nails on glass. “Wake up! Wake up, sleepy head. Oh, I’ve missed you. Did you miss me too? Come on now, we’ve got work to do.”

“Winnie?” said the second sister.

“Yes, Mary?”

“I smell children.”

“Sick ’em.”

A bright red skirt joined the plaid and purple, and they all clustered close to the cash register. Loud, dog-like sniffs punctuating the air. Rey froze, her eye still on him before the skirts obstructed his view.

“’Tis a girl,” said Mary.

“Come out, my dear! Come out,”

“We will not harm thee.”

“We love children!” said the third, who then sang sweetly, “ _Come little children,_ _I’ll take thee away_ —”

“Get your nose checked, I’m right here,” Ben shouted as he shot up from his hiding spot.

The three witches pivoted to face him, and he had never seen a more ridiculous sight. All three looked like they had stepped out of some old fairy tale: a dumpy witch with a long, narrow nose and dark purple hair twisted up like a gnarled pumpkin stem, a seductive blonde witch and her cleavage wrapped in crimson robes, and a buck-toothed witch that donned a forest green robe with gold embroidering and dark purple skirt that made the piles of flaming red curls on her head even brighter.

“’Tis no girl, ’tis a boy!” said the red-head with the shrill voice who would rather be known as Winnie.

“’Tis no boy, ’tis a _man_ ,” cooed the blonde as she glided towards Ben and clutched at his arm, her skirts swiveling around his legs. Winnie grabbed her red cloak and yanked her off of Ben, making him stumble towards the hot cauldron.

 “Contain thyself, Sarah! Tell me, lad, what is the year?” asked Winnie.

Ben swallowed. “1993.”

“Sisters, we have been gone 300 years!”

Mary said, “Well, Winnie, how time flies…”

“When you’re dead,” finished Sarah.

The three sisters laughed, but Ben stared at them and glanced down at the arm that Sarah had touched. These three weren’t a hallucination. They were real. The Sanderson sisters were real, but he was terrified to find out how much of their witchcraft was real if the stories about them sucking the youth out of children was true.

“Thou art of little humor, I see,” said Winnie as she cupped her chin with her fingers, a claw of a fingernail curled up her cheek.

“No…I just,” he swallowed again and tasted salt on his top lip. “I am in awe of you and that the legends were true.”

The witches bubbled over with joy.

“Oh, what a charming lad,” said Winnie.

Mary sidled to his right arm, and Sarah curled up on his left arm, her moon-bright hair warm on his neck.

“You must stay for supper so we can learn all about you,” said Sarah.

Ben breathed a weak chuckle. “Thanks, but I’m not hungry.”

“But we are! Roast him, Winnie!” Mary screeched.

Ben shoved both women out of his way when Winnie threw up her hands and a bolt of lightning shot out of her fingers, hitting him square in the chest. Ben flew back into the nearest wall hard enough to make the cupboard of potion ingredients shake, pain shooting from his bruised ribs and cold tingling running up and down his body. He barely got a breath in when Winnie threw lightning at him again, but this time the jolts were strong enough to push him up the wall. His hands twisted into fists, the lighter burning his his palm. His thumping heart crawled up his throat, causing sparks to dance in his eyes until it stopped and he fell to the floor again, his lighter flying out of his hand.

As his vision cleared, he saw Rey and Rose screaming and battering at the witches with a telephone book and a small broom. Finn and Poe burst out of the closet, Finn jumping in to help the girls with a moldy mop, but Poe swept up the lighter and climbed up the ladder that led to nook overhead. Ben tried to sit up on his elbows but the black cat from earlier jumped on his chest and he slipped down again.

“Nice going, _Ben_ ,” said the cat in a snobby British accent.

Ben blinked the last of the sparkles away from his eyes and wondered how hard he hit his head against the wall.

“You can talk!” Ben gasped.

“Yeah, no kidding. Now get the spell book if you want you and your friends to survive the night,” grumbled the cat, then batted Ben over the forehead with his paw. “C’mon, get up!”

Ben pushed himself up on his hands and knees. He spied the emergency fire ax on the wall, and made for it when Poe bellowed, “SANDERSON SISTERS!”

Everyone froze to look up at Poe, who stood with one hand on his hip and the other holding the lighter.

“Who are you?” Winnie demanded.

“I? I am the great and powerful Poe Dameron. You attacked my friends, and now you must suffer the consequences!”

Poe flicked the lighter on, which made all three witches gasp and Winnie whisper, “He makes fire with his hands!”

Poe flashed a grin as he lifted the lighter up to the fire sprinkler.

“I now summon--- _THE BURNING RAIN OF DEATH!_ ”

Immediately all of the fire sprinklers went off, sending the witches in to a spitting tizzy.

“Aiieee, the burning rain of death! The burning rain of death! Come on, you idiots! Get to shelter!” Winnie shrieked as she and her sisters pranced about as if the water really did burn them.

Poe shoved the lighter back in his pocket and slid down the ladder to run out of the cottage with Finn and the girls. Ben hung back, grabbed the fire ax, and smashed the display case with the book inside. He gagged at the sight of the white of the dull eye under the metal latch, but he plunged his hands in the case and grabbed the book out. He tucked the book under his arm as he tore out of the cottage, quickly catching up with the others.

The cat ran ahead of all of them and yelled, “This way, you lot! Follow me!”

“Did that cat just talk?” Finn called out.

Nobody answered, but chose to follow the cat who had tried to stop Ben from making the stupidest decision he had ever made in his life. Ben’s nails dug into the book’s thick cover and he remembered that it was made of human skin. If the witches came back from the dead and black cats could talk, then it wasn’t much of a stretch anymore for the book to be a gift from the Devil bound from human leather.

They were so screwed, and it was all his fault.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FINALLY. I'm so sorry this took so long and it won't be finished by Halloween. School really came and kicked me in the ass and will continue to do so until the semester ends, so now the new goal is to get it done before the end of November. Thank you all for your patience, this will get done! It's so much fun to write, but there's quite a bit of plate spinning to make sure everyone gets their time. It's quite a fun challenge wrangling this many characters!
> 
> I also hope that the Sanderson sisters are working somewhat too. They won't be in here nearly as much as they were in the movie, namely because I'm pretty tight on POV, but also because what makes the Sanderson sisters the Sanderson sisters is just how visually entertaining they are!
> 
> Anywho, thank you again for you patience and for your comments and kudos.


	3. Your Wretched Little Lives Have All Been Cursed

 

The black cat led them deep into the old graveyard that Ben had the snot beaten out of him just a few hours ago. They followed him under the withering boughs of an ancient tree to rest, the cat leaping up on a weathered tombstone. Ben dropped the book on the ground and steadied himself on a tall tombstone, forcing down the molten remains of his dinner.

“Oh my god, you brought their _book_ with you? Do you _want_ to get us all killed?” Finn shrieked at him.

“This is hallowed ground,” the cat cut in. “Witches can’t set foot here.”

“The cat really can talk,” Rose breathed, a smile creeping up her sweaty face. “Wait a minute, how can you talk?”

The black cat sat upright on the center of the tombstone, and addressed them all with an unblinking eye.

“I wasn’t always a cat, you know. I was once a lad myself living in Salem. I even knew the man whose grave I sit upon: Lando Calrissian.  He was Winnifred Sanderson’s lover, but she found him sporting with her sister Sarah. He was found dead one morning in his own bed, his mouth sewn together tight so that he could not speak her secrets, not even in death. But I discovered the Sandersons’ secrets, and was transformed as a cat because of it.”

“You’re Armitage Hux!” Rey gasped.

“Indeed I am.”                                                               

“So you know the witches’ secrets then, right? You know how to stop them? I mean, you stopped them from coming back for three hundred years,” Poe said, giving Ben a sharp glare.

“I never truly stopped them, I only postponed them,” Hux sighed. “I saw Sarah Sanderson lure a child into the forest. I could have stopped her there, could have saved the girl, but instead I followed them to their cottage to witness the act myself and have proof that the three were witches so they would be tried for it. I sat up in the rafters and watched them drain the life out of that poor girl. God judged me for my cowardliness, because as I tried to escape, I ended up falling right into their hands and turned into a cat. Because of me that innocent girl’s life was stolen. I waited for years for my life to end, but Winnifred’s curse of immortality kept me alive. I decided to be…useful, and guarded the house for the last three hundred years to prevent the witches from coming back because of some airhead virgin who lit the candle.”

All eyes were now on Ben, who wished that he could just slither under the earth with the rest of the molding corpses, but it was Rey’s livid stare that cut him deepest. She leaned against the tree, arms crossed, eyes glowing in the strip of moonlight across her face.

“Look, I’m sorry, all right?” Ben lashed back. “None of this would have happened if you all just skipped my house. I wasn’t going to go anywhere or do anything tonight. You were the ones who invited me over.”

Rey’s eyes widened a moment before she looked away from him, her hair hiding her face.

“We told you not to light the stupid candle, dummy,” Rose yelled at him back. “Even Hux tried to scare you off, but _no_ , you just _had_ to go and do it.”

“There’s no use in pointing fingers when the witches’ abound! Especially when we have Winnifred’s wretched book!” Hux hissed at all of them.

Rey slipped around the trunk of the tree and walked away from the group. With her friends arguing with the talking cat, Ben slipped away from the group to find her. She hadn’t gone far, but she neared the tall iron-spiked fence that bordered the graveyard.

“Rey,” he said. “Wait.”

She pivoted where she stood.

“How dare you try to make this my fault?” she spat at him.

He jerked his head back in surprise. “What do you mean? I didn’t say it was only your fault. All of you were on my doorstep.”

Her face flushed a bright red that nearly glowed in the dim starlight.

“Ah. Ahh, it was your idea then to invite me?” he said.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

She tightened the grip around her elbows. “When we went to pick up Rose she mentioned how you lived next door to her and I thought…I don’t know, I thought it’d be fun.”

“It was fun,” he admitted, kicking a pebble down the hill, “and then I wrecked it. I’m sorry.”

“I’m not the only one you need to be sorry to,” she grumbled, but then she stepped close enough for the tips of her shoes to touch his. “Thanks, though, for stopping the witches from finding me. Did you get hurt?”

The skin by his ribs prickled with bruises and a headache bloomed from the spot on the back of his head that cracked against the wall Winnifred threw him against. His bones were still warming up from the cold lightning that had coursed through his body, and his stomach still gurgled and ached.

“Just got the wind knocked out of me,” he said.

She cocked her head at him, clearly seeing through his façade, but smiled.

“I’ve got medicine at my house if you—what was that?” she said, jumping at sound of a long, vicious cackle in the wind.

They both looked up, and to their horror saw the three witches tear across the sky on their broomstick. Rey took Ben’s hand and dragged him up the hill. Ben looked back and saw Sarah zooming in low, clawed hand out stretched—Ben threw Rey and himself flat against the lawn, tasting the hallowed earth between his teeth. Sarah moaned in frustration as she pulled up and away from the lawn, but she hovered just a few feet above them. Her twinkling eye caught his when he lifted his head up. She grinned as she extended her lithe frame over the broomstick, one hand caressing the tip while the other reached out to him.

“Brave little virgin who lit the candle,” she nearly purred. “I’ll by thy friend—OUCH!”

The stone Rey threw at her knocked her squarely in the chest, sending the witch spiraling further up into the air. The teens scrambled back up the hill, where the others were already squared off with the other two witches flying just above their heads.

“There you are! We wondered where you went!” Rose said, handing Rey a branch. “We got company.”

“Bo-o-o-o-ok, come to mommy!” Winnifred sang out.

The book began to hover, but Hux jumped off the tombstone and slammed the book back down into the ground.

“’Fraid not,” he scoffed.

“Armitage Hux! Thou mangy feline. Still alive?” Winnifred snickered.

“And waiting for you!”

“Oh, thou hast waited in vain, thou white-livered skitterbrook. Thou will fail to save thy friends, just as thou failed to save thy friend’s sister!”

Hux hissed at her, but she only laughed and called for the book again. The book wobbled as it hovered once more, even with Hux clinging to it. Rose jumped in and yanked the book out of the air, clutching it tight against her chest.

“Good job, Rose,” Hux said as he clambered on her shoulder.

“We just have to wait them out until morning, right?” Finn said as he threw a dirt clod at the screaming witches, which now included Sarah as she whizzed to Winnie's side.

“What happens at morning?” Rey asked, scooped up a handful of pebbles, and chucked them into the air as well.

“We went over this when you and the airhead snuck away,” Hux huffed. “The witches need to suck the life of more children by sunrise, or else they turn to dust. That’s why they need the book to get the spell to keep them young forever and live past the morning.”

“That sounds simple enough. They can’t touch us here,” Ben said.

“Well, _they_ can’t,” Hux grumbled.

Finn lowered his branch, his eyes wide and dark. “But if they can’t, then who—”

“ENOUGH OF THIS FOOLISHNESS!” Winnifred bellowed and flew just above their heads, her fingers twirling in the air as she chanted:

_Unfaithful lover, long since dead._

_Deep asleep in thy wormy bed._

_Wiggle thy toes, open thine eyes._

_Twist thy fingers towards the sky._

_Life is sleepy, not too shy,_

_On thy feet, so say I!_

They scattered away from the ground shifting at their feet, the earth right in front of Lando’s tombstone crumbling away. The group huddled together and watched in horror as moldy hands reached out of the grave, and a green-tinged, hollow cheeked face rising from the hole. The undead man, unmistakably Lando with his mouth sewn shut, shook the dirt out of his coiled hair and his glassy brown eyes. He turned around, read his name on the tombstone, and grunted with disbelief.

One look from the grotesque zombie sent the teens screaming in the opposite direction.

“Catch those children! Get up! Get out of that ditch!” Winnifred shrieked in the distance.

A stitch caught Ben in the side and he doubled over at the trunk of a smaller tree, gulping down air and feeling sicker by the moment. He didn’t know if the thumps in his ear was his pulse or the zombie chasing after them. Rey’s scream pierced through the dull thudding, and she was at his side and putting his hands on a thick but still pliable branch.

“C’mon!” she yelled at him.

He blinked away the sparkles in his eyes and helped pull back the branch, his mind putting together what she was planning. The thudding in his ears softened just in time to hear the stumbles and the groans of the zombie charging down the hill. They released the branch when Lando’s arms came into view, sending the head flying and the body staggering backwards, its arms flailing in search of its missing head.

“That’ll buy us some time, let’s go!” Rey said as she took his hand and yanked him forward.

The stitch in his side broke as they wove through the ancient tombstones down the hill and to an ivy covered wall, where Finn, Poe, and Rose pried open the grate that covered the man-sized tunnel.

“In here!” Hux cried out before dashing into the hole.

Not needing to be told twice, they broke through the veil of ivy and entered the dark tunnel. Hux still led the way, but Poe illuminated the path with the lighter as they stomped through the mulch-thick debris. Rey’s hand slid out of Ben’s hand. Ben wanted to apologize for his sweat-slick hand, but his stomach threatened him not to speak.

Finn moaned, “Ugh, what is this place?”

“It’s the Salem Crypt!” Rose squealed.

“Why, yes it is! It connects to the sewer and up the street. We can make our escape that way,” Hux said.

They stopped for a breath at the crossways, but Ben grappled onto one of the moldy walls and shuddered. A growing pressure in his head wanted to burst out of his eyeballs.

“You okay, pal? You’re looking a little…erm, green around the gills,” Poe said.

Ben whipped away from him and made it five steps before he hurled the greasy, chunky mess on the floor.

“Sweet baby Jesus, Ben, what did you eat?” Finn shouted.

Ben spat out the last of the burning bile in his throat and answered hoarsely, “A large pepperoni pizza, four kit kats, six bags of M&Ms—”

“I was being rhetorical! Oh…oh man I gotta get away from this before I hurl too,” Finn groaned.

“Right there with you,” Poe said.

Finn and Poe continued walking straight ahead into the bowels of the crypt, following the pinpricks of light from the manholes ahead.

“God, you two can be such babies. It doesn’t smell that bad! Get back here before you get lost!” Rose yelled at them, but she stayed right where she stood.

Ben braced himself against the stone wall, breathing the dizziness away.

Rey grimaced at the sight of his vomit but asked him, “You think you got all of it out?”

“Yeah…yeah I think so, thanks.”

“Well c’mon then, we don’t have time to waste. It’ll be only a matter of time before Lando finds us,” Hux said and swatted the back of his leg.

Ben wiped his mouth with his sleeve and was able to steady himself now that the pressure in his head was gone. Both girls looked up at him and he wasn’t sure if they were disgusted at him or pitied him or both, but he was sure that his chances with Rey went out with the pizza and candy he upchucked on the floor.

“Lead the way,” he told Hux.

Hux ran forward, and the three were on the chase again.

* * *

 

Poe and Finn sauntered forward, following the curves of the main crypt while staying away from the walls strewn with dusty cobwebs that veiled the centuries-old skeletons.

“How far do these crypts go? I thought they connected to the sewer,” Poe said.

“That’s what the cat said,” Finn replied, holding his nose. “Ugh, it smells awful down here.”

“Still better than whatever Ben spewed up.”

“You got that right.”

They slowed their strut, arms bumping into each other in the dim light, until Poe finally stopped to catch his breath in the thick air. He rose his lighter and swirled around, but there was only old brick and cobwebs.

“Hey, wait a minute. I think we went too far. Rey? Rose?” Poe called out.

No answer.

“Uh oh,” Finn said.

Poe clapped his shoulder and squeezed it.

“Let’s just go back the way we came. We’ll find them that way.”

“Them or the zombie.”

They looked at each other, the tiny lighter flame illuminating their sweaty, terrified faces, their breath the only sound to temper the silence of the empty tunnel.

“Crap,” they said in unison.

* * *

 

 “Poe? Finn? How far did those idiots go?” Rose called out as they chased after Hux.

“Quickly, this way!”

Hux took a quick turn right to a fork in the road, then took off left.

“Hey, maybe we should stop and find Finn and Poe first. They might have gotten lost,” Rey panted.

Hux didn’t slow at all.

“We’ll go to the exit first, and if they’re not there, I’ll go look for them. But we must keep the book as far away from the sisters as possible, so come along!”

* * *

 

“REY! ROSE!” Finn shouted as he and Poe pounded back the way they came.

Finn’s clenched stomach relaxed when he could smell the putrid stench of vomit, but it knotted back up again when they reached the crossroads and no sign of the others. Poe pulled his hair back with both hands, eyes wide and panicked.

“Where the hell did they go?” he yelled and stomped his foot.

Finn squinted at the floor, looking for any sign of where they must have gone, when a rumbling moan echoed through the catacombs. Finn grabbed Poe by the arm and pulled him down a new tunnel opposite of that terrible noise.

“We’ll look for them later, we gotta go now!” Finn said.

Poe held the lighter ahead of them, but the flame flickered out as they ran. He growled in frustration but shoved it back in his pocket. _THUD thud THUD thud THUD_ the monster thundered behind them. How the zombie found them when the tunnel itself was near black—

“In here!” Poe hissed, taking Finn by the hand as they swerved into what he thought was a new tunnel.

It was a dead end. A dead end with skeletons resting in shallow holes along the walls, a pool of moonlight piercing the center of the room. The zombie’s footsteps grew louder by the second. They scrambled by the corner and crouched down as low as they could. Poe squeaked in surprise when Finn put his hand over his mouth to mute his ragged breathing, but he gripped Finn's arm when the zombie poked his head in. They both froze, held breath burning in their lungs as the zombie took his first steps inside the room.

The zombie turned its head, its moon-bright eyes staring straight at the boys. He growled a muffled growl and started towards them, but Poe shot up with the flame in his hand.

“Get back before I light you up!” Poe shouted.

“Hrm!” grumbled the zombie, knocked the lighter out of Poe’s hand and lifted him by his neck.

Poe choked as his legs flailed in the air, trying and flailing to kick himself free from the zombie’s grasp. Finn fished a pocket knife out of his back pocket and tried to stab the zombie in the arm with it, but the zombie swung Poe into him, knocking him off his feet. Finn’s heart flung in his throat when Poe’s grip slipped from the zombie’s wrist.

“Lando, stop! We don’t have the stupid book!” Finn said, flinching when the zombie turned his head towards him. “You want that stuff off your face, right? If you drop him and let us go, I can cut the threads off.”

Lando’s hand sprung open and Poe crumpled on the floor, coughing and gasping for air.  Lando staggered right in the strip of moonlight. Hand trembling, Finn brought up the pocket knife right to Lando’s mottled lips and sawed at the first stitch. Lando huffed with impatience and grabbed his hand to puncture the knife deep in his mouth and slice through the stitches. Rotten air and brittle leaves blew out of his unhinged jaw, making Finn squint and cough.

“Aaaaaaah,” Lando said, and he released Finn’s hand. “Thou hast done me a great favor. Many thanks.”

“Um…you’re welcome?” Finn said, his eye still on Poe, slumped on his side. “Look man, we didn’t mean any trouble. Our idiot friend lit the candle and—”

Lando waved his hand at him. “Ah, we all learn what happens when one meddles in witch affairs. I will spare thee, and thine friends, if thou promise to snuff out that firefly from hell.”

“Yeah, we totally got a plan for that. Totally.”

“Good. I shall await thee at my grave, should thou need me.”

Lando took his leave, whistling a harsh but merry tune that shivered in the crypt. Finn rushed to Poe’s side as soon as he was gone.

“Poe! Hey man, you okay?” Finn said as he shook his shoulder. “Wake up!”

Poe’s eyes fluttered opened as he took a deep breath. He clamped onto Finn’s arm to pull himself up, but leaned his forehead against his shoulder.

“Still dizzy,” Poe said faintly, “but thanks. You saved my life.”

“It…it was nothing. I’m just glad it worked.”

“Me too.”

Finn threw his arms around him and hugged him, grateful to hear him breathing hard next to his ear. Poe leaned into him, biting his bottom lip to stop the next thing he wanted to say, the thing he’d been planning on telling him for almost a year now but was too worried about possibly ruining their friendship over. Being strangled by a zombie almost made him regret not confessing to Finn. Almost.

“There you two are!” a voice scolded behind them.

Finn and Poe screamed and broke apart, but it was only Hux.

“Quit your screaming and get up. We’re all waiting for you, just follow me,” the cat said, his thick black tail curling up like a hook.

After Finn helped Poe up, they followed the irritated cat as quietly as they could, though Poe had to clear his throat and rub his neck now and then.

* * *

 “There you two are,” Rose said, glowering at them both Finn and Poe as they arrived under the manhole Hux told the other half of the group to stay under.

“Sorry about that. You feeling better, Ben?” Finn asked him.

Even though the smell of the sewage dribbling in the creek at the center of the tunnel made him feel a touch queasy, Ben certainly felt better than either Finn and Poe looked at the moment: shiny with sweat, clothes soiled with dirt and dust, and Poe kept rubbing his neck.

“Yeah, thanks. What happened to you two?”

“Finn saved my skin,” Poe said hoarsely.

Finn told them about their encounter with Lando, and the girls fussed over Poe, who waved them off.

“Let’s just get out of here,” he said.

Hux meowed in agreement and swatted at Ben’s ankles to climb up the ladder to lift up the manhole cover. Ben reached for the first rung of the ladder, but jerked his hand away at the first bite of rust.

“Grody,” he mumbled as he wiped his hands on his sweater.

“We haven’t the time, Ben. The zombie may not be after us, but the witches still are!”

“We can always get a tetanus shot afterwards,” Rey said, joining him at the ladder. “Look, I can go up first if—”

“No, no. I can do it. I got us into this mess, I can get us out.”

Ben rubbed his hands against his shirt once more and climbed up the ladder. With one hand keeping him attached to the ladder, he used his whole arm to lift up the manhole and peek out into the dark street.

“I think we’re—WOAH!” Ben yelled as Hux ran up his back, on his shoulders and darted out into the street. Suddenly car lights blinded Ben. “Hux, get out of the way!”

The street rumbled and Ben ducked down, shuddering as the manhole cover did when the car above ran over it. Rose gasped at the sound of a cat’s scream. Ben pushed open the cover again, the outside dark again and no sign of Hux at all.

“Is he okay?” Rose said.

Ben didn’t answer as he shoved the cover off and crawled out onto the street. He only had to walk a few steps to see the flattened fur body under the lamplight.

“Oh no,” he whimpered.

He approached Hux and held his arms out as if he could somehow fix the tire track across the dead cat’s gut. The others soon joined him in his misery.

“This is all my fault,” Ben said.

Rey shook her head. “No it’s not. He shouldn’t have jumped out in the road like that.”

“Now what do we do?” Poe asked.

Rose knelt next to Hux touched his ear. She hunched over so her hair could cover her face, but they could all hear her sniffling. A low whine from the cat’s corpse caught their attention. Like magic, the cat’s stomach inflated and the fur smoothed out. Hux bounded back on his feet again and shook the dust out his fur.

“Prrr, I hate when that happens,” he said. “What? I told you all that I can’t die.”

Ben let out the breath he held when he watched Hux revive. Well, at least this wasn’t the worst or weirdest thing to happen tonight.

“How many times have you been run over?” Rose demanded.

“More times than I can count. Rose, are you all right?”

She stood up and wiped her eyes. “I’ll be fine.”

“Good! Let’s keep moving,” Hux said cheerfully as he stepped on to the sidewalk.

“Where are we going, exactly?” Finn asked.

“Anywhere that the witches aren’t.”

“That’s not a plan,” Poe said, his voice gaining strength.

“Maybe we should go to the police? The military? The president?” Rose offered.

“How about an exorcist?” Finn said.

They all chuckled at that, but it didn’t last long. Poe was right, just running anywhere wasn’t a plan at all. Ben leaned against the lamp post and Hux hopped up on the newspaper stand as the others deliberated.  

“Maybe there’s something in the book—” Rose said.

“No! The book is far too dangerous. We mustn’t open it,” Hux growled.

“Well how else are we supposed to fight off three-hundred-year-old witches?” Finn said.

“We can’t fight dark magic with dark magic!”

“Look, we just need a safe place to hide the book until sunrise, right?” Ben interrupted. “My parents are at the town hall Halloween party. There’s going to be plenty of other adults there too, and it’ll go on pretty late.”

“So?” Poe asked.

Rey snapped her fingers. “So, the witches aren’t going to want to caught, and they certainly are with that many people around. I’m sure once we show off the talking cat, your parents will want to believe us too.”

Poe threw up his hands. “It’s worth a shot. And there’ll be something to drink there.”

“I’ve heard of worse ways to kill a few hours,” Finn grumbled. “I’ll right, I’m in too. Rose, do you want someone else to take a turn holding that book?”

Rose shifted the ghastly thing from one arm to the other, but she wore a fresh grin on her face. “Nope.”

“What are we waiting for?” Hux said. “Ben, lead the way.”

“Why me?”

“It was your idea,” Finn laughed.

Ben scratched the back of his neck. “Yeah, but…I don’t really know where town hall is. I just moved here last week, remember?”

Rose strode ahead, book snuggled under her arm. “Follw me, then. My folks work there, and I know the fastest way to get there.”

No one else argued as they tried to keep up with Rose’s pace. Ben couldn’t help but smile as Hux pranced ahead of her, his little head always looking back to make sure he didn’t lose her. He and Rey were in the middle, with Finn and Poe hauling up the back of their parade to town hall. A chill ran up his spine and Ben looked up to the sky, but there was nothing but a full moon and stars.

“Oh, your poor hands,” Rey cooed, bringing his attention back down to Earth.

Rust streaked across his palms, now matter how much he rubbed them across his front of his red sweater.

“It’ll wash off,” he said. “What about yours?”

She looked at her own hands and groaned, but she held them over her miraculously clean sweater. He held up his arm next to her.

“This sweater’s already wrecked, if you need to clean your hands.”

She quirked a smile and wiped her palms against the thinner half of his arm.

“Thanks,” she murmured.

He smiled back, but looked down at his vomit-splattered shoes and dug his grimy hands in his pockets. Hopefully his plan would work, and nothing else wrong would happen for the rest of the night. The hairs on the back of his neck stiffened, and he looked back up to the sky again, hoping that the shadow flying across the moon was an airplane, or a satellite, or a U.F.O. 


End file.
